


Time Does Not Bring Relief

by blarfkey



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Assassins, Friendship, Gen, Post-Trespasser, Solas straight up adores Cassandra, angst with a side of hope, gen but shippy if you squint hard enough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 01:31:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13377279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blarfkey/pseuds/blarfkey
Summary: "They should have been enemies. He: an apostate untrained by any circle, unclaimed by the Maker, silver-tongued and charming. Her: a Seeker trained to dispel magic, the Right hand of the Divine, a woman of fumbling words and a stubborn pride.They should have hated each other on sight.And yet that is not what happened"Divine Victoria's many changes to the Chantry does not earn her many friends. Assassination attempts begin, despite Leliana's best efforts. When a would-be attacker takes her by surprise in her bedroom, Cassandra receives help from the one person she never expected.





	Time Does Not Bring Relief

**Author's Note:**

> "Time does not bring relief; you have all lied!  
> Who told me time would ease me of my pain!  
> I miss him in the weeping of the rain,  
> I want him at the shrinking of the tide"
> 
> "Time Does Not Bring Relief" Edna St. Millay

They should have been enemies. He: an apostate untrained by any circle, unclaimed by the Maker, silver-tongued and charming. Her: a Seeker trained to dispel magic, the Right hand of the Divine, a woman of fumbling words and a stubborn pride.

They should have hated each other on sight.

And yet that is not what happened

 

When Cassandra was a little girl, she used to have the same reoccurring nightmare. Lost in the streets of Val Royeaux, passersby reward her pleas for help with strange looks or vague reassurances. No one listens to her, or even understands that something has gone wrong. And she never finds her way home.

Right now, being Divine Victoria feels a lot like that nightmare. In those odd moments when the impact of who she has become truly hits her, she wants to grab someone's arm and whisper frantically as she does in those dreams: "I'm not supposed to be here. Help me get back home!"

And just like her dream, such a statement would be met with looks of puzzlement or reassurances that she is exactly where she belongs. 

Cassandra has always led reluctantly. She prefers taking orders from a trusted leader than becoming one in her own right -- even within her own Inquisition. And yet, somehow, she keeps getting thrust into positions of power, unable to turn them down simply because she cannot find another she trusts who could do the job better.

Becoming Divine does have its perks. Cassandra has power now to right certain injustices within the Chantry she has always noticed.  She refuses to cow to politics or tradition when making her decisions. The Chantry needs change, and she has little care for whiney clerics who cannot accept anything but the familiar. 

Apparently, the feeling is mutual. Leliana appears to tell her in person that rumors are brewing of an assassination attempt.

"You have criticized much in such a short amount of time," she says with a smirk. "You'll be remembered as the most unpopular Divine in all of history."

She helps herself gleefully to the tray of cakes Cassandra had delivered to her rooms.

"Ugh," says Cassandra. "I don't care about popularity. I care about what's right."

"Oh, it's not a criticism. Better you than me. If I had made Divine, they would have burned me at the stake.”

Cassandra smiles. "I can only imagine the kind of chaos you would start.”

Like completely dissolving the Circle, as Leliana had expressed before. Pure bedlam. Even so, Cassandra is tempted to do the same, if only to give the clerics something real to complain about.

"Still, I would not take the rumors lightly," her friend warns. "I can install a couple of my agents here to help keep an eye on things, but you must be on your guard at all times until we find the source.”

"You mean a couple _more,"_ Cassandra points out and Leliana does nothing to protest this. "They want to start a fight, let them. I can take care of myself."

"No one would ever doubt that. But circumstances aren't the same anymore. And watching the Divine stab someone in the throat will do little to help your approval ratings."

"I'm not going to pretend to be some wilting flower when my life is in danger just because it might not look nice," scoffs Cassandra.

Leliana smiles. "Of course not. But I would rather you be remembered for the divisiveness of your rule than the shortness of your term."

When Leliana stops arguing, that usually means she will quietly do whatever she wants regardless of anyone else's concerns. So, Cassandra sighs and helps herself to a petit four. They sit in companionable silence for a moment, while Cassandra works up the courage to ask what has been weighing on her mind the last few weeks. 

"Have you heard any reports about . . . about Solas?" 

Leliana picks up a delicate macaroon while she considers her answer. "No. I have found hideouts recently abandoned, rumors of sightings, but little else. We shouldn't be surprised -- Solas practically invented subterfuge if the elvhen myths are to be believed."

"I want to know if you find anything, as soon as you can send word."

Leliana bows her head. "Of course. I keep forgetting how close the two of you used to be."

"It was not an . . . obvious friendship." Cassandra swallows against the sudden lump in her throat, the anger that smolders still, despite her prayers and meditation and secret trips to the training yard. 

Leliana says nothing, just reaches over and squeezes Cassandra's hand.

 

 

Despite added security, the dagger Cassandra carries in her sleeve, and her own heightened vigilance, two attempted attacks happen in a week. One assassin was so bold as to try and slip a knife in her ribs during her morning prayers. Her guards foil them expertly, but it still shocks Cassandra that such attackers made it this far and so soon.

Leliana interrogates one of the attackers personally. He barely survives the night, though he does eventually trace himself to a disgruntled viscount, disgusted at the thought of sharing Chantry service with elves and dwarves, not to mention the amount of tithe Cassandra demands to help the alienage. 

He is sent to trial and Cassandra breathes easier, though Leliana warns her that this is only the start, at least until enough attempts have been stopped to discourage any more.

Cassandra should have listened. Instead, when the third attack comes she is sitting at her desk in her dressing gown, writing a reply to Varric’s five-page missive that she received yesterday. Naturally, his own spies picked up the assassination attempts, and he is touchingly concerned about her.

How she is caught so unawares, she can’t explain. Perhaps it is the exhaustion of three weeks spent jumping at every little sound. Perhaps she fell into a false sense of security after the trial. Or perhaps she didn’t expect an attack directly in her bedroom. 

Whatever the reason, Cassandra doesn’t realize someone is in the room with her until a hand wraps itself around her neck and squeezes like a python.  Cassandra slams herself backwards on instinct, but she only hits the back of her heavy wooden chair, nearly knocking the wind out of her. Her assailant stands behind it, safe from any skull-cracking or foot-smashing she could give.

Black spots dance in the corners of her vision. Her hand gropes around her desk for the candle, stabs it in the meaty section between his thumb and forefinger. The hand spasms in pain, crushing her windpipe for a moment before slackening enough for Cassandra to break free.

This time she slams hard enough into the chair to crush her attacker against the wall. Once free, she vaults over her desk. The train of her nightgown trips her (Maker damn her, what possessed her to indulge in such a frilly, _useless_  thing), knees slamming hard into the floor. The chair scrapes across the floor as her attacker shoves it to the side. In an instant Cassandra shoots to her feet, dashing towards the bed. Her fingers close around her dagger just as heavy hands slam her skull into the wooden bedpost.

She sees stars. Blood trails down over her eyes. 

She stabs her dagger blindly behind her, the blade slicing through thick leather armor. It does little damage to the flesh, but it buys her enough time to spin around and bring her dagger down towards his neck. The background of her mind takes notice of the man's height, the broadness of his stance, his armor.

He blocks her hit with leather bracers, so she knees him straight in the groin. 

It does not deter him from backhanding her, his fist heavy as a warhammer. She shakes the ringing from her ears and drills her fist straight into the side of his nose. 

The crunch of his nose breaking nearly echoes in the room. She uses the distraction to bring her dagger down on him again, but his meaty hand grabs her wrist with reflexes that belie his large stature.

With a snap, he breaks her wrist.  

Cassandra screams, the dagger clattering to the floor. He bears down on her, shoving her onto the bed, her legs too spread out and the nightgown too restrictive to kick him off of her. For the first time tonight, fear stabs her with cold claws.

Sudden light spills from the doorway. They both turn to look at a servant standing in silhouette, her attacker’s hand squeezing her throat. 

Cassandra rasps a cry for help, good hand clawing for purchase at the fingers wrapped around her neck.

The man above her goes unnaturally still, his grip tight but no longer restrictive. Another tall figure sneaks up behind the serving man, knife glinting in the lamplight. Cassandra points beyond the servant's shoulders, lungs unable to gasp a warning.

A flash of blue light -- his eyes --

The second attacker turns to stone. 

Cassandra can only stare for a moment, unable to believe her own eyes. She grips the wrist of her own attacker, the skin smooth and cold under her fingers. Stone.

The servant strides quickly to the bed. He says nothing to her, just waves a hand over her attacker's shoulder, which dissolves into dust and light. It spills over her arms, down the front of her gown, onto the floor, like sand. 

In the hallway, her second assassin quietly meets the same fate.

Without a second thought, Cassandra snatches the dagger from the floor with her good hand and shoves the impostor against the wall.  Such action serves as nothing but a comforting illusion. Solas turned a living being into dust with nothing but a thought. Her dagger presses against his throat only because he allows it. She has no real defense against him.

"What are you doing here?" she demands, heart thudding in her ears.

The disguise dissolves like mist, leaving only the ageless, familiar planes of Solas's face.  She expects him to look different now that he no longer has to pretend – cockier perhaps, or apathetic.

But his eyes are as she remembers them: steady and kind and heavy with a burden she still does not understand. It makes something in her falter, a traitorous, _idiotic_ part of her that has not been claimed by her fury.

"Peace, Cassandra," he says, covering her hand with his own. She shakes beneath him, from fear, from fury, from the pain of her wrist. "I did not come here to harm you."

"Why else would you be here?”

"I had no time to warn you, so I took care of the threat myself."

Cassandra snorts. "An all-powerful god has time for such petty concerns?"

He flinches at that, barely perceptible, but Cassandra knows how to look for weakness.

"I am no god, Cassandra. But I am your friend. And any attempt on your life is no petty concern to me."

"Do not  _lie_  to me," she says, hating the way her voice cracks ever so slightly. "It no longer serves you to pretend we are friends -- it's just cruel."

Hurt flashes in his eyes. _Do not fall for it_ she tells herself.  _The God of Betrayal would have to be a good actor or there would never be any trust to betray._

But it looks too real. It all had  _felt_  real, those little moments of affirmation and understanding, the way he could see straight through all the layers that covered her vulnerabilities.

"I lied about many things during my time in the Inquisition," he says, voice soft. "I lied about my knowledge of the Breach, of Corypheus, of my true intentions. But I was never dishonest in my friendship with you. It is only the truth when I say that you are one of the most honorable people I have ever met and no one will lay a hand on you. I will not allow it."

A dagger at this throat, and yet Cassandra feels sliced open. She drops her arm and steps back. It hurts -- her wrist, her head, his words, her heart. She has no will to fight him and no chance to win even if she tried. 

"You accomplished what you came here for," she says, struggling to keep her voice even, unconcerned. "You can leave now."

"Not while you are still hurt."

"I will take care of it in the morning," she says, though she doubts she will make it that long. But she will not indebt herself further to him without understanding what that could mean later.

"I can take care of it now," he counters.

She fixes her gaze at the wall behind him, feeling her resolve crumbling. It hurts to look at the concern etched in his gaze, how much she wants to believe it.

" . . . please, Cassandra."

 

In the end, she sits on her bed, propping her arm up in silent permission. Leliana would have an absolute _fit_ if she saw, but who had Cassandra turned to when her faith was tested? Who bolstered her confidence when self-doubt threatened to overcome her? Who comforted her in her grief? Who healed her wounds after battle?

Solas. Always Solas.

 

He approaches her slowly, hands held out as if she were a cornered animal. In one palm a ball of light bloom, rising like the moon and hanging over his shoulder. 

“Your hand first,” he murmurs.

Solas cups her hand in his, fingers brushing feather light against her skin. A warm glow erupts from his palms, the crackle of magic making her hair stand on end. Such a sensation must be for her benefit, for Solas can do magic now without any residue to trip her senses. 

It’s a position they have found themselves in many times before.

She braces herself for the flare of pain that comes from setting bones, but she feels nothing but a tingling warmth, not unlike the sensation of her hand falling asleep. An experimental twirl of her wrist reveals nothing. No lingering pain. No resistance. As if the wound had never happened.

Solas steps in closer. One hand tilts her head to the side with the barest of touches. The other probes gently into her hair line, seeking out the gash in her head.

Warm light erupts above them, throwing his face in sharp relief; it’s close. Too close. She does not want to see the concern, the kindness, on the face of someone who betrayed the entire Inquisition to become even worse than Corypheus.

But relief does not come even when she closes her eyes. A memory flares up, bright and vivid and inescapable –

_“You fight hard, Seeker.”_

_Solas loomed over her, the only elf she’s met tall enough to look her square in the eye._

_The rift by the river had proved unexpectedly treacherous, the demons that poured from it a higher caliber than those they had fought before. Cassandra had taken the brunt of the punishment, drawing the attention away from Solas and the Herald, and the resulting battle left her with battered ribs and a head wound that bled over her ear and down her neck. Sitting on a boulder by the river bank, she had only meant to catch her breath before getting her wounds tended at the camp just over the ridge._

_“We would be dead if I did not,” she replied, shrugging her shoulder and then wincing at the pain in her ribs._

_It is her job to ensure the safety of her team. Such injuries are part of the package._

_“I could take care of your injuries.” He bowed his head. “If you trust me enough to allow it.”_

_She looked at him a moment, taken aback at the offer._

_“Camp is just over the ridge. I’m not in such dire straits that you need to waste your resources on me.”_

_Her reluctance to accept his offer stemmed from embarrassment. She did not want to appear too weak to make it over the hill and she did not like to be fussed over. Too late did she realize that her words implied a lack of trust that Solas could find insulting. They did not get off to a smooth start, and she would not wish to further antagonize him._

_But his expression, usually so inscrutable, belied understanding._

_“It is not a waste to help one’s allies,” he told her gently. “I do not doubt your ability to take care of yourself. But you are in pain, and I would not squander the opportunity to help you.”_

_His compassion shames her further. “Then I would be much obliged.”_

_He had started with her ribs first, the light from his magic barely visible in the afternoon sun, but the crackle of it unmistakable. A sharp pain had accompanied the healing, followed by slow relief. Then he moved to the blood-matted hair behind her ear, healing the cut on her head._

_“What you do for us does not go unnoticed, Seeker.”_

_His face lied close enough for her to count the faint freckles that spatter across his nose. It was the closet a man has been to her outside of combat. She averted her gaze to the creek beyond them._

_“Thank you.”_

His hands move to cup themselves around the back of her head. Cassandra’s eyes fly open.

“You have a concussion,” he informs her. “Hold still.”

The light of his magic casts strange shadows on the walls. But his gaze stays trained on her. Their closeness does not embarrass him or make him uncomfortable. Cassandra remembers how grateful he was for even the most basic courtesy, a sign that his life of solitude brought him deep loneliness and even lower expectations of others. And now that loneliness seems to have followed him into his new life.

“You fight hard, Cassandra,” he says.

The memory must be lingering in both of their minds.

She swallows. “I would be dead if I did not.”

Solas is silent for a moment. “I would have never let that happen,” he says finally, barely audible.

“We could have used him for information,” she says, an attempt to distract herself from the strange twisting in her gut.

Solas is silent for a moment, his gaze turning sharp and cold. “He did not come here simply to kill you. He would have brutalized you first, made you hurt in every way he could. What I gave him was a mercy compared to what he should have suffered.”

She did not often see Solas angry, the veneer of his composure too thick to crack. But it almost chills her now, hearing such violent promises from a man known to her for his quiet kindness, from a god-like being so powerful that he considers turning someone to dust a _mercy_.

On _her_ behalf.

Solas checks her over one last time, fingers skimming through her hair like a breeze, before bringing his hands down to his sides once more.

How can it be that one man is both so kind and so destructive? How can he obliterate a human being with such apathy and then tend to her injuries with such care?

“Be my friend or my enemy, but I wish you would pick one,” she says, unable to keep the bitterness from her words.

Solas looks at her, gaze heavy with sorrow.

“I know you wish it were that simple, but it is not.”

“Yes, you live for over-complication. Your shades of grey.”

“And you love the simple dichotomy of black and white. But that is not how the world works, and you know this.”

The slight haughtiness of his tone irritates her, but not as much as the familiarity of it and the way she misses these kinds of conversations.

“Well it should. Grey leaves too much room for argument and misinterpretation, for people to sit around and wring their hands and do nothing.”

“If it is so simple, then what am I to you?”

Cassandra opens her mouth – and closes it.

“If I wanted to return to the Inquisition, would you accept me?”

“Of course not.”

“If I gave you to opportunity to kill me, right now, would you take it?”

“ . . . no.” She admits, reluctantly, lips pressed in a thin line.

“Then what is the answer?”

Right now, she wishes the answer could be a swift punch to his pompous face.

“I need it to be simple,” she admits. “I don’t understand what to do with you.”

He gives her a sad smile, barely more than a quirk of his lips.

“And I you. But here we are.”

Here they are. She wishes he looked different, looked monstrous, looked like the kind of man ready to destroy the world as they know it. But he does not. He looks like Solas, the man who paints murals in the dead of night to surprise the Inquisitor, the man who was her friend. Try as she might, she cannot fathom just how the two can be the same person.

“How do you justify it?” she demands. “You fought so hard to bring down the Breach and yet you plan to do the same? You come here personally to save my life and yet you will happily take my death as collateral damage for your plans? I don’t understand you!”

“ _Not_ happily,” Solas protests. “I will not enjoy what I must do.”

“Then _why_ are you doing it?”

“Why are you Divine when it strips you of your freedom, your identity, when it places the burden of decision upon your shoulders when you have never wanted it? You do it because it is your duty, because no one else will step up and do it for you, that you put the will of the people above your own desires.”

She hates that he knows her this well, even after two years of silence.

“You are saying it is your duty to tear the Veil down?”

All at once the stubborn determination in his eyes crumbles.

“I destroyed my people, Cassandra.” His voice cracks. “Every terrible thing that has happened to the elves can be traced back to the creation of the Veil. I thought that I was choosing the option of least harm.” He swallows thickly. “I was wrong.”

“And you think tearing down the Veil will undo a thousand years of oppression?”

“This world was never meant to exist the way it does,” says Solas. “I owe it to my people to undo my mistake.”

Duty. Obligation. Hollow excuses for destruction. It doesn’t fit the Solas she thought she knew.

“Even at the cost of everyone else?” she demands. “And you knew this, from the moment we met, that we could all die because of you?”

His silence damns them both. Instantly the helpless anger that has always simmered inside sparks to life.

“I trusted you!” she says, shoving him hard enough to send him stumbling. “I _fought_ for you. And not just me – Varric and Dorian and the Iron Bull and _Cole_. Even when it looked like you abandoned us, you still had people who cared for you! And yet our lives matter so _little_ to you.”

“If you didn’t matter to me, Cassandra, I wouldn’t _be here_!” Solas shouts and it’s the first time he has ever raised his voice to her. But it seems neither of them can keep their control any longer. “I would not be risking my entire operation to help you! Do you really think in these intervening years that I haven’t kept watch over everyone? That I have done nothing when the Merchant Guild tries to blackmail Varric, or when someone sends Dorian a bottle of poisoned wine?”

“Empty gestures, Solas! That means nothing if we’re just going to die in a few years regardless because of _your_ actions,” she says, jabbing her finger in his chest.

“You don’t know that! _I_ don’t know that!” Solas stops, realizing perhaps how loud his voice has gotten. He closes his eyes and breathes deep. When he speaks again, his voice returns to the quiet, somber register he started with.

“Creating the Veil caused the world to change in ways I could not predict. Lifting it will be no different. I cannot say for certain what the damage will be, but there is no guarantee that it will kill you. Even so, what time remains for Thedas as it exists now should be spent with as much peace and happiness as one can muster. I will not have your lives end early or violently, not especially yours.”

“Not especially mine? Why do I get special consideration?” Cassandra gives him a hard, searching look. “You have always been this way to me. I understand it even less now, knowing who you really are. I should mean nothing to someone as ancient and powerful as you. Why do I matter so much?”

Solas looks at her for a long moment.

“You are everything I aspire to be,” he says quietly but it shakes her down to her core. “Empathetic, honest, humble, willing to take difficult action and make difficult decisions. I had to change much of myself to embody the virtues that come naturally to you.”

Whatever answer she expected, it isn’t _that._ Whatever praise he offered her before does not compare to _that._ It is perhaps one of the kindest remarks about herself she has ever received. Her anger dissipates like fog in the dawn.

 “They do not come as naturally as you think,” she says hoarsely. “I work hard to ensure I am the person I should be.”

He gives her a ghost of a smile. “If the rest of the world held themselves to the standards you hold yourself to, Thedas would have much fewer injustices and I would not be needed. You do not understand how rare you are.”

For years she had shoved thoughts of Solas away. His sudden disappearance not only hurt the Inquisition. He had helped her through so much, and the fact that he did not trust her or anyone else to return the favor, despite the struggles they went through together, stung.

However, dwelling on it changed nothing, so she took all memories of Solas and locked them up and focused on the tasks ahead. Becoming Divine made this even easier, but the fury remained, smoldering in the back of her mind. It provided great distraction from the true hurt he caused, and she had almost believed for a long time that she had written him off.

But now the sudden weight of such a loss truly hits her, clenches in her chest and makes it hard to breathe. She blinks rapidly to rid herself of the stinging in her eyes.

Oh, how she wishes he were lying to her, that this strange kinship of theirs be one-sided, for that would be easier to bear than the truth of his sentiment.

“No one else sees me the way you do,” she says, fumbling for the words to do the ache in her chest justice and coming up wanting. “ _You_ of all people. I don’t think you understand how rare it is for me to feel . . . seen.”

She had not realized until he left how much she relied on that feeling until he disappeared. And until now she has not realized how much she missed him. So many of her friends have died or been corrupted in the last few years. Her heart cannot take any more.

“I did not come to the Inquisition with the intention of forming any kind of attachments, much less one like ours.” His words come hesitantly, as if picked with great care. “I tried valiantly _not_ to care. I failed. Miserably. Even so, I do not regret it, though it will make what I have to do so much harder.”

“It is in your nature to care, Solas,” she says, almost fondly. “You were never going to be entirely apathetic.”

He looks at her in surprise. “I must admit, I did not think any good opinion of me remained.”

Cassandra sighs. She cannot run from it any longer. “I am a Seeker of Truth, as you loved to remind me. And the truth is that you have not changed -- I just know more about you. I cannot pretend your good qualities do not exist to make this easier to bear. Such is weakness.”

“And anyone accusing you of weakness would be welcome to try,” he says with a hint of a smile.

It hurts to hear echoes of their old banter. But pain never sits well with Cassandra. It should never sit at all. Too many have let loss and pain paralyze them into inaction. Cassandra takes pain and turns it into resolve.

“The Maker did not put you in my path to become my greatest enemy,” she says fiercely. “I refuse to accept this!”

Where pain drives Cassandra, it weighs down Solas, like a millstone around the neck. He drags its heavy burden with him. It sits heavily in the lines of his face.

“If there was any other way, you wouldn’t have to,” he says, eyes tight with sorrow. “But this is the only path.”

“The Inquisitor does not think so. Do you not have faith in them?”

Solas presses his lips into a thin line. “Faith is a luxury I cannot afford. My people have suffered long enough as it is.”

Duty. Guilt. Excuses, yes, but she can no longer fault him for them. How can she, when guilt and duty drive her decisions as Divine? Duty to uphold her faith as it should be, guilt at her complicity in the abuses her faith has allowed.

“They have. You are right to be angry,” Cassandra admits. “The Chantry has not done your people any favors. Part of my plans as Divine is to use the Chantry as a means of help and mercy for elves, not another tool with which to oppress them. It will take time – and I expect much opposition -- but I will not stop trying. You can have faith in that.”

Solas stares at her for a long moment and then, to her shock, he bends down and bestows a kiss to her forehead.

“You are more than this world deserves,” he murmurs.

Immediately her cheeks burn at such affection – no one has kissed her for _years_ – especially coming from so reserved a man.

“I am not,” she stutters.  “I am not special, Solas, and you should stop letting a show of basic decency trick you into thinking I am.”

“I’m afraid that is one area in which our opinions will always differ.” His eyes trace over her face, lingering in places, as if memorizing it. “I have stayed too long. And you need your rest.”

Cassandra clenches her fists, fighting the urge to take his arm, a childish desire to keep him from leaving. The next time she sees him might be the very last time for reasons she cannot bear to think of.

“I can hardly sleep after what happened tonight,” she says.

She still has to wash the blood from her face.

“You will.” Solas presses the tips of his fingers against her temple ever so briefly.

Immediately, drowsiness weighs upon her like a heavy blanket, making her eyelids almost too heavy to open.

“S-Solas?”

“Peace, Cassandra. I am only helping you.”

It’s the last thing she remembers.

 

The next morning Cassandra wakes with the sun.

The blood is gone from her face.

Her wounds no longer exist.

The room is immaculate. No dust, no broken chair, nor her desk in disarray.

No trace remains of anything out of the ordinary happening the night before. In fact, when Cassandra replays her memories, she almost can’t believe them. Solas appearing out of thin air, rescuing her from an assassin, healing her wounds, kissing her forehead.

It sounds like a dream. Like a pathetic, wish-fulfilling fantasy.

Until she notices the note on her night stand, a piece of folded vellum from her desk that had not been there the night before.

Inside, a handful of words are scrawled in an elegant hand.

_I will never forget you,_ _my friend._

Having read so many of his notes on the Fade, Cassandra recognizes Solas’ handwriting instantly.

She should report all of this to Leliana. Immediately. An intruder had managed to break into her own personal rooms; the security concern alone should trigger some alarm. Instead, she folds the note carefully and places it in the secret drawer in her nightstand, with a small portrait of her brother and the seal of the Seeker.

 

But of course, Leliana is not easily fooled.

“The Duke of Rousillon has disappeared,” she tells Cassandra that afternoon. “Replaced in his bed by a curiously life-like statue.”

“That’s . . . unfortunate,” Cassandra says as delicate as she can.

Leliana gives her a look that says Cassandra is as delicate as a bogfisher in an Orlesian tea shop.

“We had narrowed him down as one of the suspects aiding our dear viscount, but this all but confirms it. But that is not even the best part. On my desk this morning were two bags of sand and a list of everyone involved in the plot to kill you, along with incriminating letters. Do you know anything about this?”

“No.” It’s the truth. Though it shouldn’t surprise her that Solas was . . . thorough in protecting her, she had no idea he would go to this extent.

“Did anything happen last night?”

She thinks back to the note carefully stashed with her other valuables.

“No. It was a quiet night.”

Leliana raises her eyebrow and takes a dainty sip of her tea. “I see.” She sets her cup down with barely a tink. “If you see Solas again, give me my regards.”

If she sees Solas again, it will be the end of her world or his.

“I’m guessing you will have your hands full for a while, ridding yourself of his spies,” she says to distract herself from those thoughts.

Leliana laughs. “Oh no. I’ve identified them, but if Solas wants to make my job this easy, then by all means, have at it. I’ll make sure they don’t learn anything too incriminating.”

Birds chirp in the gardens below the terrace. Cassandra should be thinking about the upcoming meeting with the Grand Clerics, gathering a council to improve conditions of the alienage, coordinate the Ten Year Gathering, and a hundred other duties.

Instead she can only remember the press of his lips on her forehead, the way he looked at her as he prepared to leave, _You are everything I aspire to be_.

“Do you . . .” she starts and then trails off, afraid that such a question might reveal too much. But it bursts at her seams, an idea she thought she could push aside and instead batters at her doorway. “Do you think he can be saved?”

“The Inquisitor certainly thinks so,” Leliana replies.

“The Inquisitor had a . . . personal relationship with Solas. It will color their perspective. You kept distance from him. I want to know what you think.”

Leliana sits back in her chair and is silent for a moment.

“Honestly? I think distance is a disadvantage in this situation. I saw the version of Solas that he wanted me to see. The only people who saw glimpses of his real self are the ones closest to him.. Like the Inquisitor.” Leliana dips her head. “And you. So, do _you_ think he can be saved?”

Cassandra stares down at her cup. “It is what I hope for. But such hope isn’t necessarily realistic.”

“It is not the nature of hope to be realistic. But you built the entire Inquisition on hope and it became real. If you lose all hope now, it’s the surest way to condemn him.”

“I suppose,” Cassandra sighs, “we shall see.”

Once again Leliana leans over the table and squeezes Cassandra’s hand.

Soon after Leliana takes her leave and Cassandra steels herself for the rest of her day.

 

**Author's Note:**

> As much as I love the idea of the Inquisitor changing Solas for the better, I really think that Cassandra has been just as much as a life-changing influence on him, if not more so. I had always been intrigued by their friendship, but it wasn't until my second play through of Inquisition that I noticed just how much Solas respects and admires Cassandra, despite how different and opposing their life experiences are. And so I had to write this.


End file.
